As a new person in the scene. There are a lot of tips on safety. Safety is a huge word and I would never want to down play it. We all have different ideas of what is safe and what is not. We all have different comfort levels, depending on our gender or sexual orientation. It’s also easy to confuse safety with emotional insecurity. For instance, I am rarely afraid to meet someone alone for sex. However, I’m after quite terrified to walk into a dungeon I’ve never been to by myself.
Before I came into the kink scene, I was meeting people for sex. Meeting them via the Internet, email, chat, phone calls. In all the men I met, I had very few ‘coffee’ dates. My friends scolded me relentlessly and I simply brushed them off as surely I knew what I was doing, right? I could have coffee at home, after wards. I hate to admit, that I was rarely concerned for my safety when entering into casual sex situations.
Going into the BDSM scene, I see how important safety is. I realize how lax I have been in regards to my own safety and I realize I need to make some changes. I have ended up in a scene with minimal conversation about play, no negotiation and had to do a check before things got started to make sure they knew my real name. I know…. bad. I was extremely lucky that night but I’m sure there are many who have not been so fortunate.
Kink Academy has a 5 part video series on Submissive Self Safety. The first two videos were on the Safe Call, and Meeting People. Cecilia Tan discusses the dynamics of the safe call, how many, and when. She also discusses in her video on Meeting People, the different places to meet people and what to do when the vibe is not quite right when you meet them.
I admit that I don’t have a very good safety system. The last time I met someone new, while driving there, I was on the phone with my ex who was 3000 miles away and perfectly unable to do much of anything to help if I needed it, obviously. I had sent an email to another Dom I was playing with, letting him know that I was meeting someone and who he was, but did not give him any specifics as to WHERE it was other than “LA”. I sent a text message to my friend with the name of the person, the address and some other identifying information about him. The last part is pretty typical of me. In retrospect I realize that NONE of these things assured my safety, just that if I ended up missing- they would have a n idea of who to talk to. In retrospect this was a decent example of ‘what not to do.’
In my weak defense, the gentlemen I was meeting is pretty well known in the community. I had it on decent authority that he was a good person. He’s a relatively public person. Submissives talk, and if you are a jerk, an unsafe player, or a creep- SOMEONE will know it and most people are not afraid to dish the dirt on someone who is unsafe, regardless of your role. The community is wide, but not exactly small. There’s a very small degree of separation because there’s a lot of people who have been around a long time. Stories travel. People talk. It’s kind of a kinky little sewing circle.
There have been people I have met that I have been warned about. I admit that I don’t always allow that to be my deciding factor, but it is something I definitely keep in mind. I might then be sure to observe them at a play party- watch their interactions with other people or maybe even drop their name while having a conversation in a group and watch the responses of other people. In situations like that I might play with that person if I do not get a bad vibe, but only in public and not in a secluded area. A bad vibe will send me in the other direction- fast.
You’re always going to find SOMEONE who doesn’t like this person or that person and in reality there is a certain amount of instinct of your own you have to have. In my opinion, if you cannot trust your own judge of character, this is not a safe place for you to play.
You might meet someone in the dungeon you might want to play with that night. You can’t exactly say, “hang on, I’m going to walk over to this group of people and see if you’re a little crazy.” In this situation I might agree to scene in a very visible and populated area. I may ask someone I know, ‘hey, I’m gonna go play with SirLordDom Joe and I have never played with him before but we’ve gonna do downstairs, can you check on me in a few minutes? Also, the safe word is always handy and I have faith that if I’m screaming it- someone will respond to it. I tend to not gravitate towards complete strangers at parties. With sites like Fetlife, you have an idea of who is going to be in attendance. People will usually recognize you from that- or from a different party, or know that you are friends with this or that person. It’s a narrow community and there is very little reason to end up playing with someone who is a COMPLETE stranger to everyone.
One thing mentioned in the video that stuck with me is that it is a SMALL percentage, but there IS a small percentage of people in the kink community who could be serial rapists or abusers and being that many of us are private in our kink activities, they are relying on the fact that someone who is assaulted might not report it because it would ‘outing’ themselves.
That being said, it makes it very hard when you’re new to meet people. Not only do YOU not know that Dominants, but they don’t know you. Some tops are very particular with who they play with so how do you meet people without finding yourself in the hands of creeps, or worse yet, coming off creepy yourself? I had a guy email me recently, asking me that question. He had sent some emails to people in his area, and has gotten little to no response. My suggestion was to go to a local munch. Talk to people, get to know people, it might take a few times, In the area I live in, you could go to a munch every week and run into the same person at least twice. If nothing else, the person LEADING the munch has identified themselves as a leader in the community and they might be happy to introduce you to other people at the munch. Before I went to my first munch, I emailed the person running the group a few times. I talked to her and created a small dialog, so when I walked into the munch, at least I knew someone.
I have often compared BDSM play to any kind of extreme sports. It involves education, skill, equipment and the proper amount of safety precautions. You really can’t have a good experience if you leave anything out. From now on I will be sure to make safety a top priority.
My next post will be on the rest of Cecilia’s video series on Negotiation and Blame. Check back!!